g the genius of my contemporaries,"[234] he once wrote to
Southey.

It is commonly supposed that Scott's amiability led him into absurd
excesses of praise for the works of his fellow-craftsmen, and indeed he
did say some very surprising things. But when all his references to any
one man are brought together, they will be found, with a few exceptions,
pretty fairly to characterize the writer. His _obiter dicta_ must be
read in the light of one another, and in the light, also, of his known
principles. Temperamentally modest about his own work, he was also
habitually optimistic, and the combination gave him an utterly different
quality from that of the typical _Edinburgh_ or _Quarterly_ critics.

His disapproval of their point of view he expressed more than once.[235]
It seemed to him futile and ungentlemanly for the anonymous reviewer to
seek primarily for faults, or "to wound any person's feelings ... unless
where conceit or false doctrine strongly calls for reprobation."[236]
"Where praise can be conscientiously mingled in a larger proportion than
blame," he said, "there is always some amusement in throwing together
our ideas upon the works of our fellow-labourers." He thought, indeed,
that vituperative and satiric criticism was defeating its own end, in
the case of the _Edinburgh Review_ since it was overworked to the point
of monotony. Such criticism he considered futile as well on this account
as because he thought it likely to have an injurious effect on the work
of really gifted writers.

An admirer of both Jeffrey and Scott, who once heard a conversation
between the two men, has recorded a distinction which is exactly what we
should expect.[237] He says: "Jeffrey, for the most part, entertained
us, when books were under discussion, with the detection of faults,
blunders, absurdities, or plagiarisms: Scott took up the matter where he
left it, recalled some compensating beauty or excellence for which no
credit had been allowed, and by the recitation, perhaps, of one fine
stanza, set the poor victim on his legs again."

On Jeffrey Scott's verdict was, "There is something in his mode of
reasoning that leads me greatly to doubt whether, notwithstanding the
vivacity of his imagination, he really has any _feeling_ of poetical
genius, or whether he has worn it all off by perpetually sharpening his
wit on the grindstone of criticism."[238] His comment on Gifford's
reviews was to the effect that people were more moved to